METALLICA's LARS ULRICH Talks 'Guitar Hero'

METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich recently spoke to BBC's Newsbeat about the band's decision to follow in the footsteps of AEROSMITH and release its own version of Guitar Hero in 2009.

"Guitar Hero — that's about guitar and about riffs and banging your head," Ulrich said. "There's a few people that say the same thing about METALLICA — I think METALLICA and Guitar Hero is the perfect marriage.

"Guitar Hero showed up on my radar about a year, year and a half ago," he added. "I have a 10-year-old, a seven-year-old and started realizing that this was actually a great way for them to be exposed to music."

"That was what we in METALLICA's world call a no-brainer. That was one of those decisions that took about 12 seconds to facilitate."

He continued, "28 years into a career, to still be able to do things that are somewhat new and unknown to you and still cutting edge — it's a great opportunity."

Since programming began, the San Francisco foursome was involved at every stage.

"We were involved in terms of song selection, in terms of graphics, in terms of storylines," said Ulrich. "We were very hands on in all those areas.

"I sat down and approached it like a show — a set list," he explained. "There's a few songs that you would probably be tarred and feathered if you didn't play and weren't in the game — the so-called hits. Then obviously some deeper album tracks and some cover songs — catering to the Guitar Hero shredder phenomenon. [There's] every different facet of METALLICA's career."

GH2 was so much fun. It had tons of heavy songs and on hard mode many times it was the greatest feeling. Most songs you could hardly beat, you'd be on the flashing red but you'd win. That felt great. GH3 was a bit less exiciting and less fun as it was painstakingly hard and the boss battles made me wonder why I bought this game for $100. I am not buying GH4GH Metallica, I'm a sucker for metallica I might do it

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